


Eye Contact

by swooning



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 20:38:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3704297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swooning/pseuds/swooning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since finding out about Hera, Bill hasn't been able to look the President in the eye. </p><p>Laura has a plan to change that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She had known, even at the time, that the decision would come back to haunt her. The  _child_  would come back to haunt her. She had half-expected an actual ghost, following the exodus from New Caprica, when she had thought Hera dead. A child spirit, dogging her footsteps, inhabiting her dreams, accusing her with eyes full of ethereal wisdom.  _You took me from my mother,_ those eyes would say.  _You lied, you betrayed those who trusted you, and for what? The Cylons won in the end, anyway._  The tiny ghost would tell her it had all been for nothing, and she would slowly die inside, knowing that it was only the truth.   
  
But no ghost had come, of course. Laura laughed at herself, at her own inner melodrama. But when word came that Hera, her little Isis, lived... she went cold. Trying to go back, to justify, to rationalize, because she couldn't bring herself to beg for forgiveness in the face of the Agathons' pain. Admitting to herself, to them, that her decision had been wrong, would have been the final straw, too much pain to bear. And so she lied,  _again_ , by omission this time. By not saying that she was sorry, so, so, sorry, by not saying that she had been wrong. Laura told herself it had been a difficult decision, but the only decision she could have made; she reminded herself that Hera would most certainly be dead by now, had she not taken such a drastic measure to hide her from all those who might wish her ill. And she almost, though not quite, believed herself.   
  
If only Bill had believed her, she might have been content.   
  
He didn't say it. After that first revelation, his cold-lipped anger, he had never said a word about it. Not in support, not in accusation, nothing. He came to meetings and sat stiffly, frowning at his agenda, eyes on the pages before him. Thinking about things while they spoke - ever so cordially - he would scan the cabin on Colonial One, examine the flag behind the Presidential desk, or scrutinize his pen. His gaze was everywhere and nowhere, as it was when Laura attended meetings on Galactica. He had her escorted straight to the situation room, these days, rather than having her come to his cabin as had so long been their custom. No tumblers of water or splashes of liquor were offered. No literature was exchanged. He was unfailingly proper and polite and calm, and absolutely distant. No amount of angling on Laura's part could get him to look her in the eyes.   
  
The absence of Bill's gaze.   
  
It was the worst thing he could do. So much worse than voicing his disapproval would have been, and they both knew it. But since taking Hera had been the worst thing  _she_  could do, necessary or not, Laura supposed it was only fair.   
  
She thought of the way Bill had interposed himself between her and Baltar, when Baltar had arrived on Galactica with the Cylons. She had let Bill step in front of her, had very nearly responded by clutching his shoulder, peering around him at the former President from that position of safety, peeking like a frightened girl. In her mind, possibly in Bill's mind, too, she  _had_ done that, although in reality she had merely stood her ground. Stood there, and then departed in disgust, all too willing to let the Admiral deal with the situation for her. She had almost forgotten about his gesture, the gallantry of it, until he stepped between her and Helo in exactly the same way.   
Even though he couldn't look at her, he moved automatically to protect her. Laura wondered, did that validate his continuing regard for her, or merely suggest that he would have done the same for any random woman he encountered? That it said nothing about  _her_ , only something about  _Bill_? Because surely, had he stopped to consider it, he would have thought she deserved whatever retribution Major Agathon chose to level against her, if not for her original crime, then for her gall in attempting to defend her actions to Hera's parents. Protecting her could only have been a reflex.   
  
 _Frakking sanctimonious do-gooder,_  she told herself wryly. She didn't believe it, though. Any more than she believed it would last, this rage of his. She longed to take the medal she had awarded him so recently, shove it in his face, remind him forcibly of his own fallability. She would not, of course do that. It was her job to make impossible decisions, and to take responsibility for the unexpected outcomes of those decisions. But in the unique microcosm that was now humanity, she was scrutinized in a way that, perhaps, no politician had ever been; it was all so  _personal_ , now. There was no detachment, no buffer between the leaders and the people, between the government and the military, between the President and the head of the military.  
  
No buffer... Laura thought of the irony, that she could ever actually miss New Caprica. She thought often, though she tried not to, of the day of the Groundbreaking, the way she and Bill had talked for hours, laughing and cuddling, and finally falling asleep beneath the unfamiliar stars, only to wake hours later still nestled in the same position, stiff, cold, and sheepish in the sunrise.  
  
Now, she sat waiting in the Admiral's quarters, on the couch where they had spun so many plans in the past, strategized and learned one another on so many an evening. He would find her there when he arrived, and she had no idea what they might say or do. But Laura knew that, if nothing else, she would accomplish one thing this night: Bill would look her in the eye. 


	2. Chapter 2

He walked through the hatch in a bad mood, and seeing Laura on his couch did nothing to improve that mood. One of the latest crop of pilots, one of the nuggets, had nearly taken out another Viper during what should have been an idiotproof landing exercise, and the tension between Lee and Starbuck had exploded into a knock-down-drag-out blamefest following the incident. After this much time, their constant posturing with one another was beyond tedious, and the knowledge that he could hardly replace these two very senior members of his staff just added to the massive headache that had started when the words and eventually fists had begun to fly. It was tedious, and yet the father in Bill still always found it heartbreaking, to see these two at one another's throats.   
  
And now another fight awaited him, or so he could only assume from Laura’s flat, tense expression. She hid her feelings from him a bit less these days when they were alone together, dropped that prissy mask she usually favored, but he wasn’t so sure he appreciated the honesty. Why should he have to know her mood, who was he to her that she should drop her guard in that way? Her guard was everything, and if she dropped it, who was  _she_? He honestly had no idea, any more.   
  
“Can I help you, Madame President?” The formality might serve as a clue, send her on her way sooner. It was worth a shot, anyway. “I wasn’t expecting you, I thought you’d shuttled back to Colonial One after our meeting earlier.”  
  
“I know. I sent Tory back, but I decided to stay. I thought… we need to talk.”  
  
He was aghast. The last time a woman had spoken those words to him, she had gone on to tell him she was cheating on him. Not a pleasant association. Bill’s headache deepened perceptibly. “Uh… I don’t…”  
  
“I can’t believe I actually said that.”   
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“But I… we do, though. I think that…” Laura had intended to be, as usual, articulate. She wondered where her words had gone. “We can’t work this way.” Evidently, all the words remaining to her came in the form of clichés.   
  
For a long moment he stared at a spot on the couch just past her shoulder, pondering whether he was currently even capable of having the conversation he seemed to be faced with.   
  
Laura dipped her head to the side a bit, trying to meet his eyes, and was irked when he sighed and turned away with a shake of his head, stepping away from the couch. She got up, following him without thinking about it.   
  
“We'll be meeting regarding the prisoners tomorrow, Madame President, and if there’s something we need to discuss, I’ll be more than happy to –“  
  
“Bill.”   
  
He stopped again, one fist lightly tapping down on his desk as he started to turn back towards her. His jaw was clenched, and Laura noticed the tension in his shoulders, in his neck. She started to speak, but could think of nothing else useful to say. Instead, she walked back to the hatch, glancing out to make sure the corridor was clear before closing the portal and spinning the wheel that locked it. It reminded her, as always, of a bank vault. It could have induced claustrophobia, but instead she always felt supremely secure in these quarters with the hatch closed. The vault would protect their secrets, hold them like diamonds, which she supposed was what they needed just now.   
  
Whether Bill felt the same or not, she had no idea. Turning back towards him, she saw that he had not moved; he was still by his desk, standing like a stone, locked in some internal struggle that played itself out in silence.   
  
“This is how it is going to be. I am not leaving until you can look at me again.”   
  
Close, it was close to the line, it was more personal than they were being these days.   
  
“What do you want, Laura?” He just sounded fatigued, resigned… a little sickened, which tore at her heart because she felt she deserved it from him.   
  
“Absolution.”  
  
Something between a guffaw and a cough issued from him, and his eyes flicked her way in incredulity. “From  _me?_  Lady, you have come to the  _wrong_  place.” The change in mood seemed to flip some switch, and he moved again, finally, walking over to the cart where he stored the liquor, uncorking a bottle and slopping something amber-colored into a glass. He didn’t offer her any.   
  
“I’m not getting any anyplace else, Bill.” She let the double entendre ring through, wondering if it might help, but he only snorted and took a swig of his drink. “I actually don’t care about that,” she amended, lying badly. “It doesn’t matter, it’s done, I can’t undo it. So I won’t try to make excuses, or win you over about it, I just want to get _past it_. I want  _you_  to get past it. We need that, Bill.” She had moved closer to him, slowly, as she spoke, until he finally sidestepped her and slouched over to the couch, sitting down and staring into his glass broodily as he swirled the contents.   
  
“ _You_  need that, maybe.”  
  
“Could you just… the surly act doesn’t really suit you.”  
  
He looked at his glass once more, and then set it down on the table before him with exaggerated care and leaned forward, leaning into his words. “I have had a  _crap_  day, Madame President. I have a pair of senior officers acting like my flight deck is a stage for their teenage drama, frakking up discipline for everybody else. I have two Vipers out of commission because these same two officers can’t be bothered to do their jobs and train the damned recruits, they’d rather be off whining about how they aren’t frakking each other. "  
  
His voice grew louder as he spoke, and when it reached the shouting point he stood, facing her off, staring fiercely at a spot near her lapel.  
  
"I have another pair of officers who are  _too damned pissed off_  at both of us to do any work because  _you frakked up_. And one of them is a godsdamned  _Cylon_  who might just decide to switch back to the other side and screw all of us now because  _you stole her frakking baby and told her she was dead!_  How is that  _act_ , Madame President, does that frakking  _suit_  me?”   
  
She hadn’t backed up, but wanted to, as he got closer and closer, ending up mere inches away. And when his eyes connected with hers at last, somewhere in the middle of his tirade about Sharon, she could only wish he were looking anywhere else in the universe. The blast of his disdain and anger seared through her, it was nuclear, it was entirely justified, and she felt herself almost start to cry. Which was the last thing she wanted to do in response to anything Bill had just shouted into her face. Self-pity would be the one thing that he could never accept from her, in all of this. Self-pity would ensure that he cut her off, entirely, of that Laura was chillingly certain.   
  
“Thank you,” she whispered finally, when it was clear he was done, although he was still nearly vibrating with unspent anger.   
  
“ _Frak_ , Laura!” he growled, and then flung his glass sharply to one side, swinging away from her in its wake. The glass bounced harmlessly, anticlimactically, off a couch cushion, and added insult to lack of injury by splashing the few remaining drops of alcohol across the soft leather. Paying it no attention, Bill took a useless few steps towards nothing before sinking back down to the sofa and letting his head fall into his hands. “Frak.”  
  
After a moment, Laura approached the couch hesitantly and sat down next to him, sitting up quite straight, not sure how to proceed. She smoothed the midnight blue fabric of her skirt over her knees repeatedly, her palms sliding along her lap with a whisper, fingers feathering away from her legs at the end of each stroke as if she were banishing minor demons. Her thoughts resisted her concurrent attempts at organization, at smoothing.   
  
“Would it help if I let you beat the crap out of me?” she offered finally.   
  
He looked up, then, the lines in his forehead deeper than she had ever seen them. He looked pained, and as if he weren’t sure whether to speak to her at all. “That ain’t really doing it for me.”  
  
“I wasn’t really offering.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“It might be  _easier_.”  
  
“Yeah. Maybe. Do you want a drink?” He rose to retrieve his glass and refill it.   
  
“I want… yes. Please.”  
  
A cynical sneer floated across his face as he poured. “Why don’t you cut that shit out and just say what you were gonna say?”   
  
She tried, automatically, to dissemble, mask back on tightly. “What do you mean?”  
  
“I mean, the one time I ever heard you say things without thinking about them first, you were stoned off your ass, and so was I. It was cute then, this isn’t cute now, so just say whatever the hell you were gonna say.” He thrust the drink at her unceremoniously, sitting back down with an air of belligerence, legs spread, looking ready for another round of battle.   
  
“Personal attacks, Bill?”  
  
“I’m not playing, Laura.”  
  
She contemplated this new development, tongue exploring the inside of her cheek as she ruminated. “Did you ever stop to consider that the act might be the  _other_  part? Where I cover for having no idea what I’m talking about in the first place by smoothly introducing the second thing as if I’d planned it that way all along?”  
  
“I don’t buy it.” He knocked back his second drink with a practiced flick of the wrist.   
  
“You should. It’s true. Nobody’s as manipulative as you’re suggesting, Bill. Not even me. And I can be pretty frakking manipulative when I need to be.”   
  
He chuckled automatically, caught a little off guard, but then pulled himself back in again. “You make a rotten drinking buddy. I need to get Saul in here." Bill swirled a lonely remaining drop in the bottom of his glass, watching the oily liquid slide over the glass, wondering how much real liquor was left to the fleet. "I should order up a Raptor to take you back to your ship now.”


	3. Chapter 3

Limping along... he gave her his eyes again, but little else, Laura found, those next few days. Baltar gave neither of them anything, either. Given the depths they sank to to find out more - the depths Bill sank to, really - it was supremely frustrating to come up essentially empty, again and again. To know that, after all was said and done, they would have to take him to trial and be uncertain of the evidence, uncertain of the outcome. 

It was in the hands of the Gods, Laura thought, after Bill had risen from the edge of his bed and left her to sleep off the searing headache she'd acquired by staying up night after night, eating too little, acting as though the work were finite and she could rest when it was done.   
  
It would never be done, she was starting to realize. None of it would ever be done, now, until either all the humans or all the Cylons were dead; right now, Laura wasn't liking the odds on the humans. Not that any of this was exactly new information, of course, she had known this since long before New Caprica in fact; but for some reason, on this night it was hitting her full-force as if it were for the first time. She had navigated through the first several weeks of their return to flight surprisingly well, she thought, by simply plowing ahead as if there were no obstacles, by ignoring everything but the need to get re-organized, to set up her office once more, to establish again the tricky relationship with the military ( _be honest, Laura, the relationship with Bill is the part that's tricky, getting along with the rest of the military is child's play by comparison_ ). She had been able to apportion blame to Baltar for his various perfidies, to Zarek for arranging the rough justice that had resulted in the deaths of too many before he was stopped, and even to Bill for daring to call into question her decisions regarding Hera. Although that last anger, she admitted, she had not ever expressed, as even she knew it to be purely unfounded; she took responsibility for Hera, even if she would never be able to apologize. But the anger persisted, arose on its own, rankled despite her efforts to quell it. The human mind, she accepted,  _wanted_  to rationalize; it was a self-protective instinct.  
  
With Baltar once more on Galactica, in the hands of the Colonial government, she had thought they could at least achieve...  _something_ , some kind of resolution, a closure that would enable the fleet to move on emotionally just as they did physically, and proceed toward Earth with fresh purpose and clean souls. But now it seemed as though actually having the traitor at hand would present more difficulties than it solved. The issues surrounding the trial grew daily, and instead of closure Laura felt only a deepening weariness and doubt and aching sadness. Like homesickness that could never, ever be made better by a visit home, because home was utterly and irrevocably destroyed. That was what every moment spend dealing with The Baltar Situation felt like, these days.  
  
Laura fell asleep on Bill's bunk, thinking of her spacious and airy and highly overpriced townhouse in Caprica City, with its clean hardwood floors and comfortable mix of antique and modern furniture. She had loved her home, decorated it only to please herself, and coming home each day had always brought a sigh of relief that at least she had such a retreat to return to after a day spent negotiating the thorny jungle of politics. Two months before the invasion - two months before what she'd thought was her death sentence - she had finally, finally found the perfect tile to finish redecorating her bathroom, and the whole room had come together just as she'd imagined. And now it was...  _rubble_. And the fact that she was still here, two years later, meant that  _none of it had actually mattered in the slightest_ , and that was somehow the unkindest cut of all.   
  
When she awoke some time later, it was with a start at the unfamiliar setting. The disorientation lasted only a moment, then she recalled the headache, the exhaustion, and Bill at her side, talking about Baltar. She had been too tired to realize it at the time, but he had been... comfortable with her again, for the first time in what must be weeks. At least, as comfortable as they had been before. He had forgiven her, and moved on, and she had been so focused on other things she had missed the moment when it happened.   
  
Sufficient that it had happened at all, she supposed, wondering at the time. One could never tell, in space, and it was such an arbitrary thing anyway... Bill's bedside clock informed her, once she mentally translated the military time to "normal" time, that she had slept nearly six hours, and it was now ship's morning.   
  
As the cabin was empty but for herself, she took her time a bit, splashed some cold water on her face, tidied the coverlet and pillow where she had rumpled them in her sleep, before calling for a ride to return to Colonial One. Waiting for the call back that would tell her the shuttle was ready, she gathered her stack of files and notes and then wandered aimlessly about the small space, idly scanning the spines of books as she had done countless times in the past. Bill's cabin smelled better than the rest of the ship, she had always thought, of leather and old books, of wood polish and his aftershave, only the slightest undertones of sweat, mothballs, and something she thought might be modeling cement. It was a  _man_  place, with a  _man_  smell, a thought that made the President giggle a bit as a President likely should not.   
  
Adama smelled something different when he returned, hours later. Even with Laura gone, some indefinable trace of her lingered, particularly around his bunk, some hint of her that probably began with shampoo or perfume but became something else entirely when it clung to the pillow on which he knew she had slept.   
  
Bill did not try to put a name to that something. When he tried to fall asleep on that pillow, it kept him awake until finally, in frustration, he flipped the pillow over and flopped his head back down on the unsullied side.   
  
Five minutes later, his eyes still wide open, he sighed again in resignation, reached beneath his head, and turned the pillow back over... but it was a long time before he was finally able to fall asleep. 


	4. Chapter 4

More and more often, she was there on Galactica. First in the gym, where he had gone to meet Lee for a round of sparring. He caught sight of a woman he didn't recognize, and surreptitiously let his eyes linger since the place was nearly deserted and her back was to him anyway. He admired her shoulders, flexing in perfect symmetry as she lifted and lowered the dumbbells over her head and then down by her ears. Her muscles were lean, framed by the tank top she wore, and between the bottom of the shirt and the top of her sweatpants, a spare inch of pale, pale flesh was revealed each time her arms reached their fullest extension. More interesting, though, was the way her hair played down around her neck from the messy bun she had knotted it into, hair that was some color between brunette and auburn, and...  
  
He got it just before she turned to put the weights down, and jerked his eyes away just in time to avoid having the President catch him ogling her. He beat a hasty retreat before she could spot him, to keep from any awkward conversation. It shook him, seeing her like that, being attracted to her in anonymity; it forced him to recognize the attraction for what it was, which was knowledge he had been resisting for quite some time.   
  
Then it was in the war room, which she had once again usurped on a "slow" day for a change of scene. For a trip to the gym, she also mentioned, and he had nearly revealed that he had seen her working out there, instead pretending for some reason that he had no idea she was already familiar with the facility. He covered with his clumsy and needless line about the odor, and she seemed to find it amusing anyway. Afterwards, of course, he thought of half a dozen wittier or more suave comments he might have made. Well... almost  _anything_  would have been more suave than talking about how bad the gym smelled.   
  
Stir crazy, she said she was. He knew the feeling. In his case, he had no other option but to stay on his own ship. And in his case, of course, "stir" was in his own head, and he might not mind if only it weren't so crowded in there lately. His ex-wife had never been a good companion for the long haul, sadly. He beat himself up with her memory at least once a year, but was always relieved after he filed her away again. She was gone, not just gone from his daily life but literally dead now, and he knew he was only talking to himself. It didn't help, knowing that, really. She still taxed his patience.  
  
But once Carolanne had departed this time, he found her spot immediately occupied by a new voice, a new presence. And this one was impossible to stash in a drawer and forget, because she was not just in his mind now but  _there_  all the time, in his actual life.   
  
 _Laura_. She wasn't being tremendously subtle about it anymore; she was making it clear that she was interested, she positively  _radiated_  it every time they were in a room together. Not that she really had to try, to come across as sexy, she was clearly hard-wired that way. Concealing that facet of her personality before, that had been another mask she had worn, he now saw, and  _this_ was the real Laura. It made her almost impossible to resist, and he was beginning to wonder whether the resistance had ever been worth the enormous effort he continued to put into it.   
  
 _The press,_  he reminded himself, once again trying to ignore Laura's scent as she sat on his couch, bent over a copy of Baltar's book and making small, indignant noises while she flipped through the pages.  _If anything ever happened between us, the press would find out and they would have a field day_.   
  
"The press..." Laura said, bringing Bill out of his reverie. "They've been having some difficulty re-organizing since New Caprica, we're lucky there. Baltar's getting enough mileage with just word-of-mouth on this thing." She took a sip of her drink, not batting an eye at its strength, but frowning thoughtfully at the taste. "Bill, what  _is_  this? It isn't half bad."   
  
"It's actually pretty damned good, there isn't much like that left in the fleet. If you like it, you can take the rest of the bottle with you when you go."  
  
"I think I'll take you up on that. Is it black market... no, don't tell me, I no longer want to know. Ugh. We can't have this trial fast enough, Bill, I cannot  _believe_  this crap is out there and people are actually buying into it. From  _Baltar_. How short are their memories, for frak's sake?"  
  
Bill eased down onto the couch next to her, wary of his own reactions, trying to think only of the topic at hand. "Pretty short when they're hearing what they want to hear."   
  
"We have to keep the refinery going, it is not optional. The Cylons will catch up with us eventually, we'll have to jump, and then all that will matter is that the fuel is there. Can we add charges for sedition? Are we already charging him with that?"  
  
"I think so."   
  
She looked at him with her head cocked to one side, and suddenly turned it on, like flicking a switch: that glint, aura, whatever it was, sending a wave of almost palpable availability his way. "You'll make sure Colonial One stays fully fueled, right? Ready to make that jump?" It was a silly question, pointless, except that her words didn't matter, only the angle of her head and the way her lips turned up at the corners of her mouth as if in invitation.  
  
"Maybe I won't have to. Seems like you're over here all the time lately, anyway."  
  
"Maybe I like it over here."  
  
"You've mentioned that."  
  
"Well, it's cramped over on Colonial One. Where, by the way, I am due back for a briefing with Tory very soon. I shouldn't be too late, she gets so cranky."   
  
Bill chuckled and rose to his feet, offering a polite hand to help her to her own. "She scares the crap outta me, I'll tell you that. You're pretty brave to work with her every day."  
  
"Just think what she'd do if I ever tried to fire her," Laura fired back with a grin, taking his hand but releasing it as soon as she stood. She might flirt outrageously, but she usually drew the line at taking advantage of his chivalrous gestures to tease him physically. It was a restraint Bill wasn't sure whether he appreciated or resented. He knew it meant the ball remained squarely in his court, and he wondered how long she would allow it to remain there before giving up the game entirely.   
  
He saw her off himself, blissfully unaware of the significant glances that passed between his crew members as he walked the halls and stood on the flight deck with the President, discussing things of negligible importance until it was time to hand her up into the cabin of the shuttle and send her on her way.   
  
The first thought that ran through his mind, when word came the next day that a Raptor had just collided with Colonial One, was that he should never have let Laura leave Galactica. 


	5. Chapter 5

The panic didn't last forever. Colonial One was hard hit, but not irreparably so. The division between the civilian government and the military was still just as necessary as it had been before the crash, and so the President packed her things and her staff into the completely inadequate smaller cabin of the former heavy shuttle, and carried on with business as usual.   
  
The Admiral didn't necessarily have to help her carry her boxes in person, but he did. He didn't have to offer her any of the bunks on his ship, let alone making a slip and indirectly offering his own, but he had. The President had gracefully acknowledged that and let the moment go, for which Bill was relieved and grateful. Mainly, he was just happy she was alive. Too much had passed between them for things to end that way. There was this mutiny to suppress, he told himself, but when that was done...   
  
 _Something_. He would do  _something_ , although he scarcely knew what. He still hadn't decided, by the time Laura came to his cabin to fill him in on her meeting with Tyrol, who was now evidently the head of a union once again.   
  
The President sat on his couch - how many times, he pondered, had he now faced her there, and wanted her, and done nothing about it? She sat drinking his liquor - a much lesser quality of liquor now that she had taken the last of his best stash - with her bare feet tucked up under her in a way that still somehow showed off her legs. She had spent some time in the gym earlier, and he would have thought this would render her less fragrant, but instead quite the opposite was true. She smelled even better, even more uniquely like herself. Bill sat next to her, listening to her talk about the refinery workers and job rotation, and all he could think about was burying his face in the hollow of her neck that was just visible when she brushed her hair back over her shoulder, burying his face there and inhaling or even  _tasting_...  
  
"Bill, is there... is there something on my shirt?" Laura was looking at him, puzzled, and then down at her collar, trying to see what he seemed to be staring at. She gave the fabric a tug to pull it into her field of view, unwittingly baring a larger section of her neck and a hint of cleavage as well.   
  
It was too much to hope that she would never catch him staring, as often as he'd been doing it lately; this time, she looked up and got an eyeful of Bill gazing wistfully straight down her blouse. He recovered a millisecond too late, and a moment followed that neither of them was really prepared for, it was so far from their usual dynamic. She got his startled look of undisguised yearning and agitation, and he got her thinly veiled extreme suprise and merriment.   
  
"I see... there's something  _in_  my shirt," she said crisply, amused. "Are we just pretending that didn't happen? That might be a good idea."   
  
"I... was - "  
  
"Bill -"  
  
"Madame Presi - "  
  
" _Pretending it didn't happen_ , Bill." Laura lifted the bound transcript of anti-Baltar testimony she'd been browsing, and then slapped it onto the couch between them."Are we through with the Baltar portion of this evening's conversation, by the way?"  
  
"Do you really  _want_  to pretend it didn't happen?" He spoke quietly, roughly, now staring moodily down into his nearly-empty glass.   
  
Laura froze for a moment, but then forced herself to relax a fraction. She took a cautious sip of her drink, surprised to find it went down smoothly as it did. The burn came at the end, unexpected, deep in the belly and slow to build. She felt like a small but vital fire had been lit inside her, and thought perhaps it was due not only to the alcohol, but also to the tiny spark that Bill's words and actions seemed to be kindling.   
  
"You mentioned the other day, thinking about times on New Caprica," she said, as if they'd just been speaking of that. "Good times... you know, there  _are_  times now when I miss it. I really do. I know it sounds crazy, but I miss things like seeing my students every day and grading their horrible papers. Making fun of Baltar’s stupid mistakes instead of worrying about my own stupid mistakes. I want to be nobody special again, and walk out into the woods all alone and get water from the stream, and think about my cabin that will never be built now. I want to have your next visit to look forward to, and be a little sad it can’t be longer and wonder when … I can’t think about all that now. But I do. Which I hate.” She took another swig, nervous after the fact now that she’d revealed so much. “Down on that planet I let myself think about having a future where none of this mattered anymore, none of my mistakes had turned out to matter at all. Things could just be normal again, something like normal. It was stupid, but there you go,  _I_  was stupid.  _Damn_  it. All I can do is go forward, now. But it was so nice, just to have a rest from it all for a little while. To have it not be complicated."  
  
Bill gave his drink another thoughtful glance, and then took her up on her tacit offer to finally have the conversation they had been dancing around for weeks, months, perhaps even since they first met. "That one night... that was good, I thought about it a lot afterward. It got lonely up on Galactica, the surface got to looking pretty appealing at times. If we'd stayed there, I think my shore leaves probably would have gotten longer and longer. If the Cylons hadn't come. We all would've gotten soft, after enough time had gone by. And I would've known someone down on the planet who had this cabin..."   
  
She smiled at him, eyes sparkling, and then slowly, hesitantly, closed the foot or so separating them and rested her head against his shoulder, placing one hand across his chest. "I think I'll always remember exactly what that felt like, that night. Under the stars."   
  
She felt Bill's arm shift, rise and encircle her waist before he answered, completing the pose they had shared on that evening. "Yeah, me too, because we didn't  _move_  all night; I thought I'd never get the feeling back in this arm after we woke up." He shifted his fingers across her back, not quite stroking, not quite squeezing.   
  
“Are you expecting sympathy?”  
  
"Doesn't seem likely I'll get any."  
  
"Well. So what do we do now, Bill?"  
  
"We're not still talking about Baltar, right?"  
  
“ _Stop_.” Laura heard something like a giggle in her own voice, something bubbling to the surface that she barely recognized.   
  
She was startled at the depth of his expression, the warmth in his eyes, as he shifted her weight gently, sat up fully and turned back to face her. He took one of her hands in his, looking down for a moment and studying the contrast between their fingers, slim against sturdy, before looking back up and into her eyes. Wearily, a bit sadly, he smiled again and lifted her hand, palm-up, to his lips. Even the faint brush of his lips against her skin invoked a response she hadn't felt in years.   
  
“We probably shouldn't be having this conversation,” he murmured, as if he were reminding himself. 


	6. Chapter 6

She could feel the weight of his kiss on her hand, still, feel the soft warmth of his lips straight through the nerves of her palm and wrist, curling through her body to places she had avoided thinking about for the past close-to-three years. His day's growth of beard, a rough stubble, had scraped lightly at the bases of her fingers, and the lingering sensation of prickling was fascinating, it seduced her for no reason she could pin down. Laura felt almost a little dizzy, intoxicated, not like herself. All the reasons she kept so near for keeping the Admiral at a distance, shifted out of focus and slipped away like alluvial deposits slipping between her toes.   
  
She glanced almost furtively towards the locked hatch, and then back at Bill, the question in her eyes as much for herself as for him to answer. Impetuously she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, holding her breath as if the kiss were a magic spell that exhalation might break. He did nothing, at first, either to help or to hinder her. Puzzled, a little hurt, she nearly pulled away, only to realize his hands were trembling around hers. His response, when it came, was hesitant, and then needy, and at last utterly demanding, until their positions were reversed and it was Laura who was shaking, overwhelmed, barely able to breathe or move under the onslaught. When they finally parted, Laura’s eyes were huge, startled, lost, as they sought Bill’s out. He looked intense and terribly focused. The same sort of look she had seen him direct, so recently, at the errant refinery workers; now, however, it was aimed squarely at her, and she had to admit it was highly effective.   
  
She let herself be intimidated by The Look right down onto the couch, where Bill pinned her with the length of his body and clasped her hands in his, sliding them slowly up the cushion to rest near her shoulders.   
  
Nose to nose, they contemplated one another, trying to determine what their next step should be. Trying to navigate the shift in their relationship, which seemed poised to go from largely platonic to keenly intimate in one quantum leap. Trying to remember what one did in this sort of situation - it had been too long for each of them, and contrary to what one might have thought, it was distinctly unlike riding a bicycle, one did not necessarily pick it right back up. Bill couldn't decide where to put his right leg; he had intended to slide it between her knees, but her skirt was getting in the way. Laura was relieved he was gripping both her hands, because she would not have know where to put them had he let go... was it too soon to try fondling his butt?   
  
Mostly, however, they were faced with suddenly being very, very aroused, and with having to decide whether to somehow make the Herculean effort to pull back, or to throw caution to the wind and follow through. True to his nature, Bill was saying more with his expression than he possibly could have with words; Laura felt herself melt a fraction more under his gaze, and she arched towards him, attempting another kiss, which he avoided smoothly.   
  
"We need to set some ground rules," he growled, his face just inches away, maddeningly close.   
  
Laura caught her breath and nodded reluctantly. "This  _is_  insane, it's true. Can we even do this...?"  
  
"Oh, we're  _going_  to do this." He swallowed hard and gripped her hands more tightly. "We wouldn't be able to go back, anyway - "  
  
Laura's response was something between a chuckle and a gasp. "You mean you don't want to try to make it through another three-hour meeting trying to block out the thought of what we could have done tonight, but didn't?"  
  
"At this point," Bill admitted, dipping his head towards her neck as he had so recently daydreamed about, "I think we'll be less distracted just remembering it than we would be if we tried to ignore it any more."  
  
"You think so?" She had angled her head to one side to give him full access to the length of her neck, from ear to shoulder; now however, she tipped back towards him, letting her breath tickle his ear as she spoke, fighting to keep her voice even in the wake of the thrill after thrill his lips were sending from her neck down the entire right side of her body. "Maybe we shouldn't do it after all, Bill, if the memory isn't even going to be enough to distract us from one of  _those_  meetings."   
  
"Is that a challenge?" He licked a feathery trail along her collarbone, nudging her collar aside with his nose.   
  
"I am giving you another thirty seconds to set your ground rules before I take drastic measures." She grazed his earlobe with her lips as she spoke, and felt the answering shudder that ran through his limbs.   
  
"Uh... I don't exactly want to say 'no' to the drastic measures..."   
  
"The clock is ticking."  
  
His tone, muffled as it was by her shirt, was surprisingly brisk, as though he had given the subject some serious thought. "We keep it in this cabin. We always finish the work first. You're back to Colonial One by midnight, no falling asleep unless we set the alarm first. You tell Tory, I tell Saul, and if the press does find out -"  
  
"- you declare martial law?"  
  
" _You_  start issuing summary execution orders. Or we just give it to Tory and let her spin it. Let her find a way to turn it to our advantage." He felt her stiffen and lifted his head reluctantly to see a frown on her face that stopped his joking cold.   
  
"I just thought about Baltar again... the aristocracy thing... if the press got hold of that angle and ran with it..."  
  
"There's always going to be something."   
  
For a few seconds, it seemed as though things might have reached an impasse; Laura looked at him anxiously, unable to read his suddenly grim expression. But then some shift in their positions, the slightest change in the way Bill was leaning into her, brought them back to their senses. They had really already made their decision, after all; it had only taken one kiss, in the end, to decide them. This interlude with dialogue was just giving them time to get used to the idea, and they both knew it.  
  
"If it isn't one thing, it's another," she agreed, raising an eyebrow at him with the faintest hint of a smile.   
  
"Right." He moved a little, letting his hips ride more firmly against hers. Unable to resist, he released one of her hands and shifted his grip to her waist, sliding his fingers greedily over the silk that covered her ribs but stopping just shy of touching anything truly interesting.   
  
Laura responded by upping the ante, working her free hand between them and unsnapping his jacket closures one by one until the whole thing hung open. To Bill's surprise, then, she burrowed under his collar in much the same way he had so recently been doing to her. She wasted little time with merely sniffing, preferring to dive immediately into tasting, a series of licks and gentle bites that finally prompted Bill to wrench himself free with a groan and capture her mouth with his.   
  
It didn't take long, once Laura had introduced the element of unfastening clothing, for the idea to catch on. Within minutes, a trail of clothes littered the floor of the cabin, navy blue wool and lavender silk entwined suggestively under a single high-heeled shoe, the Presidential bra blanketed by the Admiral's inside-out tank tops and his discarded belt.   
  
Rank had been shed along with garments, and when they fell to the bunk, there was no jockeying for position; Bill landed on top, and stayed on top (and Laura, knowing she could as easily be in control from that position as from any other, didn't bother to argue the point). There were still a skirt, a pair of trousers, and some assorted undergarments between them, but for the moment, Bill seemed content to refresh his memory regarding the delights breasts had to offer. He did this, in fact, to an extent that eventually grew a bit tiresome for the recipient.  
  
"Bill," Laura at last prodded gently, "you can move along, you know. They'll still be there later."  
  
"It's just been such a long time," he replied, not unhappily, sighing and indulging in a final nuzzle and fondle before working his way down to her skirt. He removed it swiftly, and watched with eager anticipation as Laura impatiently shoved her panties off as well, lifting her hips and then wiggling the scrap of cotton down her legs. She pushed herself up on her elbows and shook her hair out of her face, grinning impishly. It was devastating.   
  
"It  _has_  been a long time," she agreed, and then sat up fully and reached for his pants, unbuttoning and unzipping them swiftly. He helped things along, shucking the trousers and his olive-drab boxers to reveal an impressive erection.   
  
Laura gave him a slow once-over, giggling a bit when she got all the way back up to his face.   
  
"Bill, you should probably take your glasses off."  
  
"Only if you do," he countered immediately. She reached up in suprise, smiling sheepishly when she realized she was, indeed, still wearing her own glasses.   
  
When she took them off, she blinked owlishly for a few seconds, her vision not what it once had been. Bill plucked the spectacles from her fingers gently, placing them carefully alongside his own on the nightstand, and then climbed back onto the bunk and tugged her down to lie facing him.   
  
"We're naked," he pointed out, looking rogueishly charming and boyishly happy. Even as he spoke, his fingers blazed a trail down her ribcage, into the dip of her waist and out, and over the crest of her shapely hip.   
  
"Yep." Closing her eyes, Laura rolled onto her back, letting herself revel in the delicious sensation of his hand exploring her body.   
  
"You look... really good naked." He bent over her, plumping a breast with his hand and taking the nipple into his mouth, flicking his tongue over it until she whimpered and arched closer, her knuckles whitening where she gripped the coverlet beneath them. "Even better than I'd pictured."  
  
"If this is the part where you expect me to act suprised that you've pictured me naked..."  
  
"And I thought I was being subtle."   
  
Laura slid her hand over his, shamelessly urging it lower. "Let's not waste time on subtle right now."  
  
"Hmmm." Bill skipped ahead several steps and bypassed subtlety completely, levering her legs apart with a carefully placed knee, a move his body had evidently now recalled. His fingers found their way between her thighs as accurately as if guided there by sensors, and she gasped despite herself at the sudden pressure of the heel of his hand against her clit, the soft teasing of his fingertips over her labia. "How's that?"  
  
"Ohhh... surreal, but please don't stop."   
  
"It is, isn't it?"   
  
She met his eyes boldly, never stopping the slow response of her hips to his continuing exploration. "Just a bit, yes."  
  
Her hand was on his again, fruitlessly trying to coerce him to go just that bit further, to slide his fingers inside her. With the advantage of enormously greater upper body strength, Bill had no trouble pretending to ignore her efforts, although he smirked when she gave up with an irritated sigh. "Then we're both thinking about it too much."   
  
"I'm  _tired_  of thinking... oh,  _there_..." For he had given in, insinuated a finger inside her, then another, and was teasing his way deeper with a maddeningly slow pulse.   
  
Her eyes drifted shut again, and Bill watched unabashedly as the building passion played itself out across her face. The heat and slickness gripping his fingers, her movements and soft noises of pleasure, conspired to make him nearly lightheaded with lust. But the fact that this was  _Laura Roslin_  in his bunk, after all this time, that they were actually doing this thing he had scarcely allowed himself to imagine, was daunting enough to lend some gravity to his actions. What they were doing was vitally important - because anything involving Laura was vitally important - and he had to get it right.   
  
Which did not, by any stretch, mean that he didn't plan to enjoy it too. He had tried for so long to rein in his imagination, but could never completely rid his sleeping or waking mind of visions of Laura Roslin that had nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with the curve of her lips, the tip of her tongue, those compelling calves that dared him to find out whether the thighs met the same standard. By the time Bill made his decision on that issue, of course, he had hopelessly compromised his own objectivity on the matter. Laura's thighs looked astonishing, but he was already sold on the way they felt, silky against his hand and then his face; and the way they tasted, salty where they rounded so delicately at the top, tangier and muskier the closer he drew to their junction.   
  
She was, he discovered, as overeager as he was. He had intended to torture her sweetly, indulge himself at her core until she was melting, pliable, if possible even begging for completion; instead, one touch of his tongue against her clit sent Laura over the edge, cursing and laughing at herself as she went. She was still laughing - with occasional breaks for aggrieved moaning - as she dragged him up her body and guided him inside herself with less ceremony than either of them had planned.   
  
"Gods... you will try that again sometime, right?" Her voice was rough, shaky... gorgeous.   
  
"It won't always be that easy, though, will it?"   
  
"You wish... " She arched her back, shuddering through an aftershock, and parted her legs further to allow him to thrust deeper. "Gods, Bill. I'm..."  
  
... _so frakking hot_ , he thought. "Beautiful," he said, because it was the sort of thing one said at such a time. His lips moved, but his mind had abandoned itself to the unbelievable sensations of being inside Laura, moving inside Laura, frakking Laura. And then it was his turn to reach his crisis too soon, to curse the relief that wasn't quite enough. Wondering, even as he came down and slowed to a gasping halt, how long it would take his traitorously aging body to work its way up to doing it again.


	7. Chapter 7

They broke nearly all their own ground rules right away. They did keep things in the Admiral's cabin, that much they accomplished. But the work was never finished first because, as Laura so pragmatically pointed out, their work was never finished anyway; the best they could ever hope for was to reach a reasonable stopping point.   
  
That very first night, Laura stayed until long past midnight, closer to two in the morning. They hadn't fallen asleep right away. She had tried to get up, to get dressed, but somehow it hadn't happened. Instead, they wound up talking about nothing much at all... books they had both read and enjoyed, a few plays they had both seen, their favorite movies - some actually did overlap - the restaurants they missed the most now that Caprica City was no more. He was surprised to learn that she had liked to cook; she was suprised to find out that he had enjoyed gardening. Each was surprised to learn that the other liked opera, and they shared a moment of poignant lament at the low likelihood of their ever attending another opera in their lifetimes.  
  
It wasn't until they reached that point in their conversation where they simultaneously burst into a clumsy chorus of a cheesy pop song that had been popular during their teenage years that they stopped, looked at each other, and remembered what they were there to do. Almost shyly, they made their second foray into this new, more or less still forbidden, territory. And this time there was slow torture, and yes, even sweet begging. After Laura recovered, there was reciprocity for that, until Bill pushed her gently away and encouraged her to straddle him instead, wanting to feel her around him again. She was perfect, and he was enthralled, and after they came and then melted, sated, into the bunk, there was not a single thought of setting the alarm.   
  
When next they met, a few days later, it transpired that Laura had not informed Tory of their liaison, and neither had Bill told Saul.   
  
"I couldn't figure out how to work it into the daily briefing," Bill admitted. Laura concurred, noting that Tory always insisted on following an agenda, and she simply hadn't known how to word that particular item for inclusion.   
  
"'New Business: Item: Not that it's any of  _your_  business, Tory, but I'm having a'... what? What is this we're having?"  
  
"Affair... relationship? I'm not good at figuring that out." Bill looked amused, happy, as well he might with a lapful of accommodating female for the first time in years. He had her half-undressed already, and was working on the other half while she talked.  
  
"'Not that it's any of your business, but I'm frakking the Admiral.'"  
  
"I would tell you what I was gonna tell Saul, but you'd probably just want to hit me."   
  
Predictably, she whacked him over the shoulder instantly, a fierce mock glare crossing her face. After a moment, she added thoughtfully, "It better have been something flattering, though."   
  
" _Oh_ , yeah."   
  
"Yeah, I'll bet."   
  
"Stand up, I can't get your pants off this way."   
  
That night, at least, they remembered to set the alarm.   
  
  


* * * * *

  
  
  
"You are having  _what_?"  
  
"And in the event that this becomes more generally known - "  
  
" _You’re_ … Wait. With  _who_?" Tory's eyes were nearly bulging out of her head, and her shrill tone made it clear she was spoiling for a tizzy of epic proportions.   
  
" - it will be up to you to have a plan in place to handle public opinion and the press. Just in case. Because  _that_  is your  _job_ , let us not forget."   
  
Tory said nothing, only stared in abject horror, at the President who returned her gaze with unseemly calm.   
  
"I believe that covers our agenda for the meeting, Tory. If you'll excuse me?"   
  
  


* * * * *

  
  
  
"You gotta be frakking kidding me. With  _Roslin_?"  
  
Adama raised his eyebrows at Tigh and took a hefty swig of his drink.   
  
"Holy crap. With  _Roslin_. Should I even ask what the hell you were both thinking?"  
  
"Is there any point in asking?"  
  
Tigh grumbled, glared, and then admitted there was, indeed, no point. After a long, few moments of awkward silence, he cleared his throat and spoke again.   
  
"So... can I ask you something?"  
  
"Not if it's about her legs, you can't."   
  
"It wasn’t."  
  
“Her rack, either.”  
  
“Never mind, then.”  
  
  


* * * * *

  
  
  
"It isn't fair," Laura insisted. "I'm getting glares and daily lectures,  _plus_  funny looks every time I pass Colonel Tigh, and you're getting 'attaboys' and  _zero_  lectures because Tory doesn't even want to be in the same room with you..."   
  
"Cabin."  
  
"Whatever."   
  
"Did you expect anything different?"   
  
"No. It's typical. Not fair, but typical. I haven't been a woman in politics for this long without learning what to expect in this type of situation."   
  
"This type of situation? Would you not talk about Adar when we're -"  
  
"- I didn't mention Adar. This one unhooks in the front."  
  
"You didn't have to. Mmm."  
  
"Bill..."  
  
"I know, I know. Moving right along. In... a minute."  
  
  


* * * * *

  
  
  
And in that way, they spent a few weeks in something unexpected, something that felt as new as it felt familiar, in the floating and dreamlike state of falling in love. Familiar, because each of them had been in love before, knew what it felt like to be that deliciously distracted. New, because falling in love is always new, always for the very first time in the universe. They walked together through the corridors of Galactica with a circumspect distance between them, studiously avoiding one another’s eyes, but sharing an occasional illicit thrill… the brush of fingertips as a document was passed along, the glancing pressure of a hand in the small of the back in a courtly gesture of ushering-along. Surreptitious looks across a room with carefully impassive faces, looks that said nothing and everything and made them both weak in the knees.   
  
Then there were stretches of two, three, even four days when their schedules did not allow them to see one another. Only the com line sustained them. It was Laura who suggested that – for purposes of security, and to foster improved communication between the head of state and the military leadership – they have a direct line set up between Colonial One and the Admiral’s quarters.   
  
So simple, they wondered why they hadn’t thought of it before. So simple, they wondered how they had functioned without it. Not much actual business would be conducted on that line, of course. But they could accomplish the more important purpose of being the first one each other spoke to in the morning, and the last one each other spoke to at night. It eased things a little, the lovesick loneliness of having to spend their nights apart. It became an instant routine – the morning call, the evening call, except on the rare occasions when they were able to schedule a plausible late meeting.   
  
If Laura had known beforehand, she wondered, would she have traded that particular late meeting for a phone call? That late meeting during which, his head cradled against her, Bill’s questing fingers and lips had lingered overlong in that one spot. Not in his usual way, the blissful tedium that Laura had already come to anticipate, but haltingly, with growing concern and a horribly thoughtful silence. And then  _finding_  it, and raising his eyes to hers, drawing her fingers to the spot to confirm his finding, and waiting while her world came crashing to yet another halt around her.   
  
What she would not have traded was the feel of Bill’s arms around her. The knowledge that now, she could sink into his embrace and  _feel_  the pain she had to feel. The look in his eyes, those eyes she could melt into when they met hers with such unconditional compassion and strength. She would not have traded anything for this strange, new reality - that instead of the supreme loneliness of making that dreaded trip to the doctor by herself, taking the news and making the decisions by herself, she now had  _someone_. And he would be the first to say, “Screw the press, you can stay here tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll visit Cottle. We’ll figure out what we’re gonna do.”  
  
Together.


End file.
